The Second Miracle

Adam had dressed himself
with the help of the homeless people who stood up for him during his ordeal, and
was led through the congestion at the mouth of the alley into the crowd still
spilling onto the street.Almost
immediately, as they made a circle around him, Stork, who introduced himself as
Royal Channing, presented the remaining eleven and several others, who had
protested the treatment of this man.

From the opposite side of
the boulevard, Alfredo, at Moses’ insistence now parked the produce truck on
the curb, and contrary to his promise that he would remain in the cab to make
his voice heard climbed out with his friends’ assistance and made his way
across the street to hear this historic event for himself.

“I thought Christians
don’t lie,” Alfredo rebuked Moses, as the five men crossed the street.As he remained sitting behind the wheel, he
called, also half-seriously “Hey, I wait for ten minutes then I’m gonna head
uptown.I’m not kidding Moses, I got
deadlines too.”

“Why you doin’ this
Moe?You made your point!” asked Al, as
the preacher staggered toward the crowd.

“You should be in the
hospital,” Skunk counseled worriedly. “You should wait and do this later when
you’re sure on your feet.”

“I’m just going to listen
right now,” he explained dismissively. “I’ll wait for the Lord to put words in
my mouth.

“Oh, Lordy,” groaned Al.

Moses depended upon Skunk
and Tom to keep him on his feet.Against his wishes, they stopped on the outskirts of the mob, refusing
to go any further if the preacher opened his mouth.

******

Adam, who had a keen
memory for names and faces, sensed the significance of the first dozen vagrants
introduced.The number of bodies was,
of course, twelve.A pause in Stork’s
introductions after he reached, with hesitation, Kaz Yorba, and the fact that
this group stood apart from the others, seemed coincidental, if not portentous.A sinking feeling, that came upon him as he
stood there in the crowd, worsened as he studied this motley group.He hadn’t seen Moses yet in the crowd or he
would have been shaken by the look on the prophet’s face.Already, he had mentally marked those who
had played the part of the tormentor when his ordeal began.It seemed obvious to him that Royal
Channing, though he behaved cowardly when put to test, had been on his
side.This was true for Troy Holland,
Alden Taylor, and the women in the group (Ursula Painter, Liz Moydin, and Effie
Powers).He also remembered the
piercing but benevolent gaze of Wyatt Brewster and Cassie Moa, a timid creature
cowering by Liz’s side.The remainder
of the twelve, however, he placed on a different mental list.Buff Peyton, who had started the whole thing
going, he swore to himself, he would never forgive.Into this same group, he would put the malicious little dwarf,
Kaz Yorba, the sinister looking Indian, Jonathan Trueblood, and Heck Reyes,
whose voice he remembered heckling him too.Everyone else, who stood around him, including the kindly bag lady
introduced as Lucille, were not part of the twelve.This realization came to him on his own, without inspiration from
Satan, which added an element of dread to his apprehension.

None of the twelve gave
him that warm and tingling feeling he knew he should feel.They were, after all, unwashed homeless
people—a polite name for tramps, misfits, and bums.Without giving the deceased another thought, several of the
local vagrants, he recognized as one-time tormentors, also crowded around him
at this point.Although they still
thought he was a very weird man, he had killed one of their enemies: Charlie
Blintz.He had also gotten rid of the
local nuisance, Rhoda, the skid row witch.He was, in their estimation, some sort of holy man, though they were not
unanimous on what exactly that was.The
vagrants, who had, as most of the twelve, shown sympathy for him from the
start, had moved forward from the sidelines and appeared to be the majority
among the mob.Gradually, as Adam
looked around accusingly at the crowd, many of his one-time tormentors, due to
guilt or shame, faded away into the bowels of skid row whence they had
come.When droves of them began
departing from the crowd, members of the twelve, taking the cue, attempted to
thin their own ranks.

“Get
away from the preacher,” Stork ordered Buff, who, quite humbled now, was
holding his arm and wincing with pain.

“You too,” Effie pointed
at the dwarf, “get!”

No
one dared tell Heck and Johnny to leave. Kaz Yorba, who ducked behind the two men, displayed a rotten mouth
of teeth to compliment his misshapen shape.Adam was reminded that moment of Gollum, the fiendish little toady in
Lord of the Rings.His protectors
struck him simply as a pair of thugs. As they looked down menacingly at the crone, Adam placed the dwarf
and his protectors right below Buff Peyton on the “who to get rid off” list
being compiled in his head.

Among
the twelve, Stork (Royal Channing) was the first one to ask Adam who he was.He simply didn’t know the answer to this
question and looked at them all blankly, hoping they would think he was too
overwrought to reply.Another group,
far too small to have any significance, were composed mostly of curious
motorists.Because of the distance,
most of them had not actually seen the cremation and were not as impressed with
the strange-looking man.Satisfied that
he was all right, many of them looked afar at the holy man and his tattered
congregation with skepticism, started up their vehicles, and drove away from
this dreadful place.

It’s
time for another miracle, the thought came into his head.He looked around for her now, hoping that he
wouldn’t be forced to communicate only mentally with her the rest of his
life.Where was she now?Had she slipped back into the invisible
state she had communicated with him before.It would be very supportive right now to have her looking on in the
crowd…. Suddenly, with the great ring of squalid bodies formed around him, she
spoke again to him again in his thoughts, actual words instead of mere thought
impulses echoing in his mind.

“Place
your hand on Buff’s arm!”she commanded
softly.

“No,
absolutely not,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Don’t
argue Adam,” her voice rose inside his head, “do it now!”

“Weren’t you
watching this debacle?” He mumbled angrily, as if to himself. “That
son-of-a-bitch started it all.He drew
attention to me!” “No, Satan, this nonsense has gone far enough!”

Seeing
his lips move, those closest to him perked up their ears.Many of the onlookers, including members of
the twelve, still thought he was addled in the head.

“He’s
speaking.The holy man’s speaking,” Kaz
murmured in awe.

“Get
away from me, you creep!” Adam cried aloud, grinning with satisfaction as his
chief advocate, Stork, shoved Kaz passed Heck and Johnny into the crowd.

“Touch
his arm.Do you hear me Adam?”She shrilled this time.“This man will become one of your greatest
disciples after what you’re going to do!”

“Buff,
the Creator is telling me to heal your arm,” Adam now blurted.It was a lame effort to identify his
benefactor and brought on an immediate reaction.

“No,
Adam,” Satan admonished him sternly, “don’t try to give me any of your silly
Judaeo-Christian names.Let me come up
with a title.Call me Lord, if you
must.That’s a more neutral term.Now grab his arm…. That’s it look into his
pain-glazed face.Don’t hate him
Adam.His father use to burn him with cigarettes
before he left Buff’s mother.His
mother abandoned he and his brothers on the street when he was twelve.He’s my child Adam.He’s now your son too!”

When Adam found her words
impossible to digest, she attempted logic on him again. “Adam, look now at your
new friend Stork, who protects you.He’s watching you carefully now.”

Looking
inappropriately at the sky, he shook his head, heaved a sigh, and looked
forlornly at the ground.To onlookers,
as he mentally communicated with Satan, he seemed to be doing a pantomime.“He’s not my friend,” he wanted to shout.
“He ran like a scared rabbit with all of the others.He looks like he might have AIDS!Is this the best you can do for me?You’ve surrounded me with the worst bunch of misfits I’ve ever
seen!”

“This
man is merely malnourished and needs general medical treatment,” she explained
patiently. “He’s expecting great thing from you now; please don’t act like an
ass.When you’re done working your
miracle for Buff, Royal will grow spiritually, become a great evangelist and
spread your name to every corner of the world.”

“What
are you talking about?” Adam asked incredulously, scanning the crowd for her
face. “I heard you say world before.Surely you can’t mean the world.Look at me and where I’m at.I’m
a joke!”

“We’re
going to remedy that Adam,” she promised, as a warm current seemed to blow
across his face and neck. “I’ll tell you hard luck stories about the other
members later that you won’t believe.You need to know these people first before you tackle the world.Skid row will become your proving
ground.Like the original twelve, their
success stories will be the cornerstone of the new faith.” “Now heal Buff!” She
prodded less gently. “Show those few brave motorists on the edge of the crowd,
who’ve left their cars, your powers.We
both know how important they will be: they are mainstream folk.When they drive out of here they’ll tell
everyone they meet about this miracle.Maybe we’ll be lucky and even draw in a television crew.Do it for him Adam!Do it now!Did I not promise you great power?”

“Jesus
Christ,” he mumbled looking around unhappily at the assembly.“All right,” he then said to himself, again
scanning the crowd.“My heart’s not in
this.You must tell me exactly what to
do.”

By
now, Moses had managed to filter into the crowd.Many of the homeless people, who recognized him, moved politely
aside.A few greeted him quietly, but
the preacher noted an undercurrent of hostility, as if he was intruding upon a
sacred event.Little Tom, Skunk, and Al
were positioned protectively around him, refusing to let him move too far
forward into the crowd.

“He’s
talking to Satan,” Moses observed with excitement.

“Moe,” Al whispered
into his ear, “shut up!You promised
you wouldn’t make a scene!”

“Is
he really talking to the devil?” Tom whispered to Skunk. “I just see his mouth
moving.I think he’s nuts!”

“Place
your right hand on the wounded area,” she told Adam, searching her mind for an
appropriate ritual. “That’s it.The
ancient Picts of Scotland performed this ritual before they were corrupted by
that troublesome sect…. Now place you’re left hand on his filthy head and raise
your eyes to the heavens as if you’re praying to whats-his-face.”

“What’re
you doin to me?” Buff asked, fearful of the holy man’s vast powers. “I said I
was sorry.I am sorry.I didn’t use to
be such an asshole.Please don’t
cremate me like Rhoda and Charlie Blintz.”

“Shut
up!” Adam snarled. “This isn’t my idea!”

“Repeat
after me,” she whispered into his mind. “By the power of the Lord of the
Universe.”

“By
the power of the Lord of the Universe,” Adam said, continuing to stare at Buff
with utter contempt.

“I
heal you’re wound and forgive your transgression.”

“Oh
God,” Adam groaned.

“Say
it!”

“I
heal you’re wound and forgive your transgression.”

“That
your healing may be a testament to the New Age God of enlightenment and
tolerance.”

“That
your healing may be a testament to the New Age God of enlightenment and
tolerance,” Adam responded mentally, watching a tiny insect from Buff’s head
skitter across his hand.

“You
see I’ve been listening to your sermons,” she chatted with him as the ground
again shook below his feet. “Everything we do from now will be based upon the
apostasy you generated in your church.”

“Apostasy?”
Adam protested mentally. “I didn’t
consider it apostasy!”

Buff
Peyton felt a sudden and inexplicable shot of pain in the vicinity of the stab
wound.Looking inside his grubby coat
at his arm now, Buff made gasping and whistling sounds as he realized that the
stab wound to his arm was not only healed, but the blood on his foul shirt had
almost disappeared.

“My
wound’s gone!” He cried at last. “The son-of-a-bitch healed me!”

“It
was the Universal Lord,” Adam said, quickly removing his hands from the filthy
bum.

The
tobacco-chewing and foul-mouthed Effie now became the first to acknowledge his
divinity.

“Oh
Jesus, you’ve come back to Earth,” she said, bowing down onto the ground
Oriental fashion and fluttering her arms and hands.As some of the others followed suit, Adam, greatly impressed with
this second demonstration of Satan’s power, had the presence of mind enough to
cry out “Stop this at once.I’m not
Jesus Christ!”Following this outburst,
Satan again began telling him exactly what to say in his thoughts.

“Jesus
Christ was one manifestation of the Godhead,” he said in rote fashion.“So was Buddha and Mohammed…. There are
other prophets of enlightenment…. I am the last such prophet.But don’t bow down to me.”

At
that point, Moses friends had to muffle him and drag him protesting mutely from
the crowd.

“Sounds
flowery,” Effie grinned toothlessly. “Like one of those English aristocrats or
something.”

“Knew
a gent from Salem, Oregon,” Stork said thoughtfully. “Stole my shoes one night
when I was stinking drunk.”

“Isn’t
Dade a county in Florida?” Asked Troy.

“It’s
an anagram,” Marie explained to Adam, as he mentally digested his new name.
“Salem means peace in Hebrew.Troy is
correct: Dade’s a county in Florida.I
wanted your name to have some kind of significance.”

“Salem’s
a prophet,” Buff said, reaching out to fondle Adam’s arm.

“Salem’s
a holy man,” Stork said, with rapture in his watery blue eyes.

“Which
am I: prophet or holy man?” He whispered to her, searching the crowd one last
time.

“You’re
both,” her voice came once more into his head, “but let these unwashed
vagabonds define what you are.Let them
compare you to Jesus Christ if they wish.But you’re mine now Salem.Don’t
forget by whose authority you operate when you exercise my power!”

“All
right,” he had the presence of mind to ask. “You’ve given me a new name.What’s your name?What do I call you, now that we’ve made our
bound?Satan, Lucifer, or Mary Queen of
Hell won’t do.It’s time to personalize
yourself, madam.I know that we made
love, but are you fish or foul?Am I to
know you as man, woman, or beast?”

“I’m
many things,” she replied carefully.

“Not
good enough,” he folded his arms, “I need consistency.I need a name.”

By
now, his pantomime was interpreted by observers as a form of divine
madness.To members of the twelve, who
witnessed close hand the first miracle, it was easier to dismiss his quirky
behavior.For many others outside of
the twelve, however, he did not seem right in the head.Several onlookers, who had not witnessed the
first miracle, shrugged their shoulders and walked away.

“I’m a woman,” she said
softly. “You can call me Marie.” After scanning the audience, she added, with
hesitation, “…Roget.”

It was the name of Adam’s
first girl friend in the sixth grade.Satan, he realized with a shudder, had been tracking him all his life.

******

As
the crowd continued pressing him for answers, he rubbed his temples, hoping
that he had would be released from her mental hold.Unless she decided to leave, and without God, no power on Earth
could exorcise her from his mind.That
moment, as he broke away from his friends, a distant voice hollered out a
warning to the world: “Beware!A false
prophet is among us as a wolf in sheep’s clothing!”

Al, Skunk and Tom had been
dragging Moses Rawlins back to the truck, Al instructing Alfredo to “haul ass
out of skid row,” but not before Moses gave his counterpart a scathing
prophecy.With his unmuzzled head out
the window, Moses shouted the first lines of his verbal war against the False
Prophet of Skid Row:

“Listen Children, do you
hear that sound?That charlatan in your
midst would have you believe he’s a harmless lunatic, but he’s not harmless,
nor is he a lunatic.He’s the False
Prophet spoken of by John, the Divine, and by the Apostles of Christ.Listen not to his voice, when it appears to
ring pure and true.Look around your
world at the signs.Listen to the sound
of distant drumming: wars, political chaos and moral decline.The End Times, though a whisper, has been
set in motion by this man.For lo, in
the words of the Revelator: ‘the devil has come down to earth and has but a
short time!’”

As Moses Rawlins voice
trailed off in the distance, Salem was not certain whether or nothe had been insulted by that man.In the preacher’s own words, he was not a
harmless lunatic but a man to be reckoned with.He had called him a wolf in sheep’s clothing and worse, a
devil—unflattering titles for a onetime minister, yet ones commanding fear and
respect.He had never believed in the prophecy
in apocalyptic literature, so being called a false prophet, wolf, or devil
shouldn’t have bothered him.When he
had heard the old evangelist on television ranting about the End Times, he had
rejected it outright.So why did it
fill him with dread to hear those labels again?The Book of Revelation, after all, he believed, was written as an
admonishment to the churches by Saint John, the Divine.His liberal interpretation of the Bible had
allowed him all sorts of loopholes for his faith, which made it easier for him
to accept his destiny now.Didn’t Satan
say the street people would define him?What did it matter what he was called now or who he was?No one could ever harm him again.He would, with the help of these credulous
fools, make the best of his new role on Earth… Or so he told himself, as he
considered the preacher’s words…. But what if Satan was wrong?

So far it appeared as if
all the doomsday forecasters had been mistaken.Not only was Satan a woman, but the Bible’s play script appeared
to be in error.This was skid row, not
Babylon or Rome, as it was prophesized in the Book of Revelation.What about his role in Marie Roget’s scheme?Who was he suppose to be, if he wasn’t
the False Prophet of the End Times?Someone in the background was at this very moment arguing loudly with
another spectator about this very subject.

“He’s not Jesus, you dumb
shit.Didn’t you hear him tell us who
he is?He’s Salem Dade, prophet for the
Universal Lord.”Stork corrected a man
in the crowd.“It was an act of divine
judgment: a bolt of lightning straight from heaven.Then he cured that fat guy over there’s arm!”

To Adam, however, who knew
differently, it was Satan’s triumph—her hour.He could see her now in a plain blue dress, her long dark brown hair
bellowing faintly in the afternoon breeze, a countenance indistinguishable from
millions of other pretty faces seen in the world.

As she winked at him, he
was reminded of the moment when she told him to brace himself.He had barely felt the surge go through his
body, and yet as a luminous, human cross, he had smote his enemies and, at the
same time, set their cause—whatever that was—in motion.He had been a transmitter for her magic, a
living testament for the faithful and an example of her supernatural
powers.Now, in front of this lingering
crowd, he felt his destiny as an insubstantial reality, in spite of and because
of the presence of Marie Roget.Who
would ever believe the identity of this baby-faced woman?He scarcely believed it himself.

Handing
him a fresh robe and sandals, she whispered sweetly to her protégé, “Put this
on to hide your tattered clothes.Put
the sandals on your feet.There are
many sharp objects on the sidewalks and the street.You will find many pitfalls in life, but I will be there.”

Before
he could reply, she warned him by stern eye contact not to acknowledge her and
then returned to her uncomfortable habit of injecting thoughts into his head.

“I
told you ‘Put this on!’Say only what I
tell you to say.You need a script at
this stage.I will provide one for you
as you go along.Someday the whole
world will know about this miracle and hear of the new messiah.But right now he is a very tired and
overwrought young man, who needs the strictest guidance to hold this crowd.”

All
right, he responded mentally, guide me.

Eagerly
accepting her direction during these critical moments, he concentrated with
great difficulty on her every thought.With the notion implanted that the crowd must define who he was, to the repeated
question who are you?, therefore, he
carefully avoided replying directly to avoid entrapment.He used instead the ancient Jewish custom of
answering one question with another, saying “who do you think I am?”Because there were several god fearing
people now in their midst, including motorists who had appeared just now on the
scene, the answer could have been many things.As John the Baptist had done, however, he did make it clear who he was not, when he said, “I am not the
Messiah.”It was only important to him,
at this stage, that they did not confuse him with Christ.As weary as he was, he knew that this
mistake in identity would run contrary to the fundamentalist interpretation of
the Second Coming.In spite of the fact
that he had never believed in a physical return, himself, such a bald-faced lie
that flew in the face of Biblical prophecy would be looked upon as the worst
heresy by most Christian groups.

A
better response, Marie informed him patiently, would have been I am not
Jesus—-period!Now, at least for
this small audience, he could be no more than a holy man or, as Moses accused
him of, a prophet and a false one at that!

Whether
or not he was called a prophet, a messiah, or a preacher made no difference at
all to him.It was all he could do now
just to humor Satan and play the role developing for him on the street.

The
questions regarding what had happened here today were much easier to answer,
for his answer was based upon observable facts.Again, though, he allowed the crowd, particularly the twelve, to
answer for him.When they asked him how
he did it, he simply raised his eyes heavenward with palms uplifted, emitted a
long, indiscreet yawn, and allowed them to draw their own conclusions.A dozen or more “Hallelujahs!” and “Praise
the Lords!” by members of the twelve and other members of the crowd were
uttered without a single word on his part.Not one person dared call him Jesus after his clarification, although
his ascetic visage gave him a Christ-like appearance.

While
the eye-witnesses of at least the second miracle were nevertheless convinced of
his divinity or holiness, those arriving belatedly on the scene or not having
the vantage point of the “inner circle,” who had followed his tormentors into
the hallows of the alley, were not so impressed.

“You
believe what you want to,” a deliveryman replied to the trucker who had seen
the second miracle with his own eyes.“But there’s something not right about all this.What would a holy man or prophet be doing
down here in a place like this?Does
that make sense to you?”

“Jesus
started with a bunch of low-lives,” Marie offered as if she was just one of the
crowd. “One of them was a tax-collector.Another was a prostitute too.”

“Which
one were you prissy?” Effie asked, spitting tobacco on the ground.

“I am
his wife,” Marie announced, walking up to her and staring unwaveringly into the
old woman’s myopic eyes.

For
perhaps the first time in her long career as a bum, Effie gave way to another
woman, a look of fear etched on her ancient face.Watching Adam wince but keep his composure after her declaration,
Marie listened to the gathering crowd.It seemed to her that most of the people, who had witnessed the
miracles, were still stunned and at a loss for words.It was enough now just to be near the holy man and know it was
real.A few still believed he was the
savior returned at last to earth.Most
of the newly arrived motorists and pedestrians became deeply impressed with
what they heard from the eyewitnesses, though there were a few skeptics in the
crowd.Everyone, except the skeptics,
shook their heads in wonderment at these events.

Wyatt Brewster stood
beside Alden Taylor, who had been his friend for many months on Skid Row.The student priest, whom his friends sometimes
called Padre, had been praying quietly to himself after hearing Moses prophecy
from the window of the truck.

“… I know now what I must
do now Lord,” he whispered under his breath. “I am greatly terrified after
watching that woman appear in the crowd.I know she is the dragon, and it’s my mission to stand as a witness and
record the rise of this man.”

As he conversed mutely
with the Lord, Alden watched him carefully, wondering if this was not another
episode of the young man’s manic depression now. Without saying a word, the distinguished looking black vagrant,
shook his sleeve gently, as if to say “Wake up, that’s enough,” but this time
Wyatt ignored his guardian, withdrawing to the back of the crowd to be alone
and talk with God.

******

An hour and fifteen
minutes after it began, following Satan’s miracles and Salem Dade’s debut, an
LAPD cruiser arrived finally on the scene.After assisting Robbery division uptown, Patrolmen Garth Fletcher, with
his partner Phil Reed, had been loath to answer this call.Fletcher and Reed had seen almost everything
on skid row, including hate crimes, robberies, knifings, shootings, and
rapes.The complaint that a homeless
man was being harassed by fellow vagrants seemed commonplace and lacked
urgency.Homeless men and women were
always being victimized by other street people down here.In point of fact, this crime scene included
a stabbing, molestation, and two cremations—an impressive list of violent acts
for just one call.What the two police
officers saw now, however, were a collection of misfits surrounding a
strange-looking man, whom they conjectured was probably on drugs.Before the officers even exited the cruiser,
a cynical mindset was therefore presented to the vagrants on the street.

“What do you think, Phil?”
Garth motioned to the crowd. “You believe dispatch’s report?You think there was a 187 here?”

“I don’t know, Garth.”
Shrugged Phil. “Let’s check it out.”

“What’s going on, chief?”
He called out to a young man on the street.

“Prophecy must be fulfilled,”
Wyatt replied dreamily. “I shall, as a Judas Priest, after chronicling the
beast, denounce him when the time is right!”

The patrolmen, who assumed he was drunk or on drugs, could hear Alden
Taylor’s baritone voice utter, “Who is this man, who will render to ashes his
enemies yet heal the wound of a foe?” And shortly thereafter a woman shouted
from a departing vehicle, “He’s a fake and charlatan.That man’s not Jesus Christ!”

At this point, in guarded
humor, they exited the safety of their squad car and strolled, hands poised
over holsters, through the crowd.A
déjà vu feeling struck them both as they recalled similar incidents uptown and
at Pershing Square.The closer they
came to the central figure in the crowd, the more clearly they could understand
the woman motorist’s concern.

“What do you make of
this?” Garth shook his head in disbelief. “He look like Jesus Christ to you?”

“He’s probably on drugs,”
Phil concluded with a sneer.

Though Marie seemed
totally unruffled, Adam didn’t know what to say to the police.They were laughing at this spectacle.He wasn’t worried about the cremated
vagrants in the alley; all that remained of Crazy Charlie and Rhoda, the witch,
were carbonized smudges on an alley wall.But he dreaded the notion of having his background probed if someone
turned in a report.After murdering his
wife, he no longer had a personal history.Until his bargain with the devil, he barely had a future as well.What if they arrested him and took him
downtown?A few moments ago, he had
become Salem Dade, but downtown he would, after a lie detector test and police
interrogation, become Adam Leeds again.

“Then please tell me I
won’t go to jail,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

“You
won’t go to jail,” she promised, squeezing his hand.

He noted with relief,
after seeing the officers’ gestures and expressions, that they were, more than
anything else, amused by what they saw.They were, Marie explained discreetly, used to seeing aberrant behavior,
especially on skid row.This part of
town was rampant with schizophrenic, autistic, bipolar, and multiple
personalities.It naturally had low
priority, which was why it took so long for them to arrive.It would have been much worse, she assured
him, if hard-boiled detectives were questioning him now.These were merely patrolman responding
belatedly to a dispatcher’s call.

The decision to dismiss
the event in vague terminology as a religious affair crossed Adam mind, but he
hadn’t the foggiest notion what to say.In his thoughts, he was reminded by Marie to let his disciples define
him.Did not that bumpkin fisherman
Simon identify Jesus as the Son of God?Several people were now chattering about the event to the police.Three interrelated topics dominated their
conversations: the miracles performed today, the strange circumstances
surrounding his appearance, and the two people, Charlie Blintz and Rhoda Simms,
cremated by the wrath of God.Everyone
had accepted the presence of Marie Roget in spite of her eleventh hour
appearance on the scene.The police
ignored these obvious lunatics as they would any vagrant burnt out on cheap
wine, but took note of the attractive auburn-haired teenager by his side.Adam could see the mirth in their eyes, as
they swaggered through the group.

With eye contact, Adam had
told Stork to be careful. So, not knowing what else to say Stork replied
forthrightly, “we’re having a meeting officer, just a friendly chat.”

“A meeting?Friendly chat?Is that right ma’am?” Garth, the tall, muscular prematurely gray
officer seemed to undress Marie with his eyes.

“That’s correct,” she lowered
her gaze demurely.

“Yeah, a meeting,” Ursula
said defiantly. “Ain’t no law against that.”

“It’s a meeting!” several
other vagrants cried, nodding their shaggy heads.

“What kind’ve meeting?”
Phil looked squarely at the black woman with unveiled contempt. “…. Say,” he
stuck out his jaw,“Didn’t we bust you
once for prostitution?”

From blazing eyes and feisty snarl to what struck Phil Reed, an avid
hunter, as a“a dear in the headlights
look,” the attractive black woman grew submissively quiet.At that point, he looked around at Adam,
Troy, and the others and shook his head with disgust.Garth, for his part, focused upon Marie, whom he suspected was
under-aged.Phil moved down the line
toward the man in white, wondering, as his partner, if she might be a runaway
teen.If that was the case, he would
have some explaining to do.Stork
whispered into Adam’s ear, as Phil, appraised both of them with a drill
sergeant snarl, “Quick!Act addled in
the head, and he’ll leave you alone!”

When the black officer
stood directly in front of him mere within inches from his face, Adam began
imitating the actions of the autistic Cassie Moa, who stood next to Liz Moydin,
looking down, up and, sideways furtively, mumbling to himself, his right arm
shaking as if he had a palsy—something even Cassie didn’t do.

You’re overdoing it,
scolded Marie.

“What’s wrong with him,”
Phil looked squarely at the woman.

Suddenly and inexplicably
for the policemen’s benefit, the woman’s face aged noticeably in a split
second, the time it took for them to blink.The amorphous Satan, Adam noted grimly, added a few wrinkles under her
eyes and flecks of gray to her hair, though she still looked younger than himself.

“He’s finally talked,
after all these years,” a rich baritone voice came from the crowd. “A few
ruffians made sport of him, but we scared them away.”

“What the—!” Phil’s mouth
dropped, the expletive flowing mutely out of his mouth.

“What’s going on here?”
Garth looked back and forth from the mystery woman to the owner of the Darth
Vader voice.

Garth, like Phil, could think of nothing clever to say.Alden Taylor, a dignified black man wearing
a tattered gray suit, came forward now, as if he was the spokesman for the
group.When he explained, in his own
eloquent voice, the cremations and healing, the officers turned away with
renewed disgust, elbowing their way back through the crowd.Almost instinctively, Adam noted, as if
street savvy was a natural sense, the homeless folk said nothing specific about
the two homicides and healing but cloaked them in supernatural terminology,
which made them unbelievable to the police.Everything was all right now, he felt reassured.They would take care of their own.The two officers looked back, mumbled
something among themselves, but then departed with looks of scorn on their
faces.Adam wondered if Marie was
correct and this was the way the police answered all such calls.Down here, there were just too many mentally
disturbed vagrants to take one autistic man seriously, even if he looked like
Jesus Christ.

Marie, after reading his thoughts, nodded faintly.Again, the chameleon face of the Enchantress
changed: the flecks in her brown hair disappearing, just enough aging under her
eyes remaining to leave onlookers guessing her correct age.Marie was, of course, ageless, thought Adam;
in another body, with a different voice, she had tempted Nero and Genghis Khan.Almost all had fallen to the Temptress.The greatest exception had been the man whom
he resembled now.Here he stood, not in
Biblical Jerusalem or marching with the Third Reich, but among lowly rabble of
skid row.The smile on her beautiful,
adolescent face belied her role as the Queen of Hell.It struck him with bittersweet clarity that his mentor had picked
the perfect hideout for a murderer.Truly he could lose himself here.He would be safe on skid row, if he kept a low profile, as just another
mentally disturbed misfit on the street.

******

The police officers
noticed several motorists and two truck drivers still parked on the curb.Although this area was a legal parking zone,
they found this gathering of vehicles unsettling.What had that strange autistic man done to generate so many spectators?Wondered Officer Phil Reed.Officer Garth Fletcher was thinking about
the woman whom they called Marie.He
would never forget the subtle transformation that took place in her face.Through cupped hands Phil hollered at the
crowd of hangers-on “Show’s over
folks.This is becoming a public
nuisance.Break it up, and go
home.”Not certain he was talking to
them, however, most of the drivers held on, wondering what the Jesus
look-a-like was going to do next.Other
incoming motorists would pull over when they caught sight of the counterfeit
Christ.A few of the vagrants, who had
shown up recently, turned away and, as with most of the motorists, laughed at
the absurdity of this scene.None of
the homeless folk, who had seen the miracles, however, departed, as the squad
car drove away.Everyone was waiting
for the holy man to finally speak…. A peculiar feeling of well-being overtook
Salem Adler (a.k.a. Adam Leeds) as he watched the cruiser disappear.He realized, with some trepidation, that he had
nothing more to fear with Marie Roget by his side.

“You still don’t
understand completely yet,” she said, while adjusting the clasp on his robe.
“You were reborn last night.With me, Salem, you are safe anywhere on earth.It’s your disciples who are what John Locke
called blank sheets.Forget that positive
thinking new age rubbish you’ve been spouting.You will write your will on these lost souls.You will give the world a brand new religion, unlike anything
seen or heard before!”